Novel look at roots of the crisis
in faith

John Young

Caroline Chisholm Library

3/358 Londsdale St

Melbourne VIC 3000

This novel provides an intriguing foreshadowing of contemporary events in the Church and in secular society.

It starts in 1956 and follows the lives of the main characters for several years.

Through fictional characters and events it shows the clash of philosophies which has since become so much more obvious.

The principal characters are several young women who enter a convent in 1956. The story follows their struggles and the development of their personalities and ideas.

One leaves and later marries. Another, who had broken her engagement to enter the convent, finds herself at university studying under the philosopher who had been her fiance. A third develops a radical lifestyle, including goddess worship.

The characters are well-drawn, their interaction is absorbing, and the different standpoints come out clearly.

Convent life in the 1950s is described clearly, with the tensions already emerging which would become critical in the years following Vatican II.

This volume is the second in a trilogy, of which the first — The Castle of Heavenly Bliss — is set, for the most part, chronologically later. Both volumes are in the Caroline Chisholm Library.

Situated in Victoria, the locations are vividly presented, particularly the fictional country town of Binawarra.

The author has a gift for portraying scenery, events and people in a manner that makes them come alive in the reader’s mind. He maintains one’s interest throughout, as the story moves towards its climax.

Gerard Charles Wilson has an orthodox Catholic outlook, with a keen awareness of the ideological and moral problems in current society and of how they have unfolded in recent times. I look forward to the final volume of the trilogy by this talented Australian author.